CONDEMNATION OF ATTACK ON CHARLIE HEBDO IN PARIS

On January 7, 2015 a brutal attack was carried out on the office of the French weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo, in Paris. This attack was evidently perpetrated by a Muslim group in retaliation for satirical cartoons on Prophet Muhammad first published in 2006. In this attack, twelve people, including ten journalists of the magazine, were killed. Later on January 11, 2015, a Hamburg daily that reprinted the cartoons was hit by arsonists.

After carrying out the killings, the attackers recited the words: "Allahu Akbar". This attack, however, has nothing to do with Islam. It is totally against the Islamic spirit. I condemn this act in the strongest terms. The attackers justified their attack by saying that they had avenged the Prophet Muhammad. According to the killers, the journalists had published cartoons which ridiculed the Prophet. In Islam there is no commandment to kill people by making such allegations against them. The cartoonists had exercised their freedom of expression, and freedom of expression is totally allowed in Islam.

Even during the Prophet's time there were several instances of ridicule, however the Prophet and his Companions neither punished such persons nor asked anyone to do so. On every occasion of this kind, the Prophet's Companions always tried to positively disseminate the message of Islam. The killing of those people who had published the cartoons is a gravely un-Islamic act perpetrated in the name of Islam.

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan